1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to motor vehicle interior parts and method of making the same.
2. Background Art
Motor vehicle interiors have many interior components made of panels. Examples of these types of interior components include, but are not necessarily limited to, interior door panels, instrument panel, consoles, other interior trim parts and seats.
The panels employed in these components typically comprise a relatively hard, rigid substrate, a cover skin or layer, and a soft padding disposed between at least part of the substrate and the skin. The soft padding is typically foam. When foam is used, the panel is made by placing the skin/cover layer in the mold in a spaced apart arrangement, and then introducing foam into the mold. The foam, upon curing, secures the cover skin to the substrate.
A relatively common construction of these panels is to have the substrate have portions that are adjacent the face portion of the cover skin. This reduces the amount of cover skin that is required to be used. Often times the portion of the substrate that is adjacent the face portion of the cover skin is provided with a higher quality surface finish (“A” surface) than the other surfaces of the substrate, since this portion will be exposed to the vehicle compartment interior. During typical forming processes, foam tends to seep between the cover skin and the substrate and, in these types of panels can cause unsightly blemishes at the interface of the cover skin and substrate. A common technique for covering up these blemishes is to place a separate cover or trim piece over the interface, adding cost to the component. It would be desirable to have a clean interface between the substrate and the cover layer/skin, thereby creating an “A” surface, i.e., the aesthetically pleasing surface visible to a vehicle occupant, without using a separate cover. By a clean interface, it is meant that an interface does not have any foam seepage.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a panel and a method for making the panel that does not have noticeable foam seepage at the interface of the cover layer and the substrate.